Someone appears about a hundred feet away, peering at them through the trees.

"What do you need to know to get me back?"

"Where we are now."

"Yes, but specifically."

"Where we are."

"Latitude and longitude? An address?"

"No. No."

Person approaches slowly.

"Someone's coming. Please don't do anything sudden, Kaff. You owe me a trip back."

"I will stay."

"Right... Right." And louder, "Hello?"

"Hi! You look lost!"

"Hi! That's because I am lost! Do you happen to know where we are relative to Idaho?"

"The nearest city is Winnipeg!"

"Winnipeg. Canada. Does that help, Kaff?"

"No."

"Of course not. Ahem." To their visitor, "Are you with the Canadians, then? I'm Tara, by the way."

"Bella. What do you mean with the Canadians?"

"Nice to meet you, barring the circumstances, anyway. The Canadian branch of the Spirit Association?"

"I don't know what the Spirit Association is."

"They're a big organization for magic users, probably the biggest in the world?"

The - dust figure - shifts slightly.

"You're really lost and you need to get out of here in the next two weeks."

"Kaff. You put is in - in another universe?"

"Yes. It was a mistake."

"Can you put us back?"

"Don't know."

"How did you get here?"

"Kaff is a genie, genies can do just about anything if they're strong enough and owe you favors. It's just that you need to be very specific and apparently 'get me out of here before the building collapses' is not specific enough."

"I see. Is there a catch besides that?"

"Only if you make a deal, but Kaff already owed me. Kaff, will you know if you can get me home in - in half an hour you think?"

"No. I will know in a day."

"Fantastic. No point rushing then. The battle will be long over."

"Battle?"

"Monsters. I'm a medic, there are casualties. But a day is far too late to help, everything will be cleaned up by then."

"I'm sorry."

"These things happen. You have to learn to accept them when you can't do anything about it. Uh. So, I'm in a different universe. Not sure where to start with that."

"Perhaps more importantly this universe is in a time loop and resets when the world ends and I don't think you're usually in the time loop, although I guess I can't be sure because I'm not usually near Winnipeg around now."

"Kaff, can you get us both out of this universe, if not back home?"

"Yes. It's difficult."

"You owe me my safety for sending us here."

"Yes."

"So there's that. The world ends? Do you want me to try to help with that?"

"I would love help with that! I'm trying to solo it and it's really hard!"